


The Cruel Mouths of Lions

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hunting, Lions, Magic, Shapeshifting, Violence, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Technically a very early Prequel to As Tall As Lions - Red Queen's Race</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Cruel Mouths of Lions

**Author's Note:**

> Technically a very early Prequel to As Tall As Lions - Red Queen's Race

When he was young, his mother told him he was special, that he had always been wanted, bastard, fatherless nothing that he was, child who was told more than once that his skull should have been cracked open against the rocks at the riverbed, no, he should have been thrown in to drown, no, no, he should have been left in the forest so that his screams might attract some wild beast to tear him to shreds. Once or twice it had been said that he should have been a bleed, not a life, that his mother should have seen the midwife to ask for her help or failing that, she should have gone out to pick pennyroyal, blue cohosh and wild carrot and put all of them to use before going to her mother's to bite her tongue. But instead he had been allowed to grow, hale and hearty, a weed amongst an otherwise unspoiled crop and grow he did. A healthy boy, a strong boy, a handsome boy. The boy the village girls all looked at but then looked away from immediately. Witch boy, bastard son, devil child - not a boy to dally with unless you wanted a bastard's bastard, to be another shame to the upright, the good, the just.

"You have always been my good boy," his mother said, "you will be so special, you will do such great things." She had been young, a silly little slip of a thing to lift her skirts for some passing stranger.

His mother was the Devil's whore, they said, she knew all the dark secrets. Why else would she keep such a dirty child? She knew magics to keep her boy alive when all the other children sickened and suffered, had kept her youthful looks in this harsh, unforgiving scrape of land on the edge of nowhere. Some said it was not a man but a demon instead or some beast wearing a human skin when it had crept in through her window and into her bed.

She smoothed back his hair, lying next to him on their straw palette.

"Why am I so special?" He asked, turning amber eyes on her, meeting her grey.  
  
"Because you are my son." She kissed his brow, drew the blankets up and over both of them. "And your father...he has power, he said you were a blessing, that you would bring prosperity."  
  
"Who is he?"  
  
"I don't know his name or any title but he said there will be a sign and then you will know him."

And so the conversation went until he had grown tall, living on his own in a tiny cabin on the outskirts of the village, beginning to doubt her - a child is impressionable after all and cynicism creeps in without warning, takes roots and spread. His only prosperity was cutting wood, hard graft but good work for a strong young man with no other prospects, tramping through snow, axe slung over one shoulder. A pittance, no thanks but the most he could do. Away from the narrow minds of the town.

"You were meant for more," his mother insisted, "you are meant for more." Fervent, almost possessed of this fool's notion and he scoffed, handed over coins and returned to his cabin, thick furs he'd skinned himself for blankets, stew and crusty bread to fill the hole and warm his bones. Twenty years and this would be his life until the day he died, this cabin and his wood cutting and the howling wind and the scorn that burned even more than that. Alone. Maybe a desperate woman as downtrodden as he would finally appear - he didn't know if he could be alone forever - but it was doubtful, there were far better prospects than him. But he would be alone as his mother slowly went mad with whatever strange dream his father had filled her with; it had been enough to have her turning down proposals, a chance to clutch at a few straws of respect but she had spat at them, slammed her door and had bid him to come, set his head in her lap as she combed his hair and crooned lullabies.

On the coldest night of the year thus far, a man knocked upon his door and wrapped in furs he'd answered, shivering when the wind picked up, cold leeching the warmth of the small fire. He wasn't an elderly man but the weather had turned him pale, given his face a tight, pinched look and snow caught in his hair, frost forming in his beard.

"I'm so sorry to trouble you," the stranger said, teeth chattering, "but could I stay for the night? I can pay you in return."  
  
"You don't need to pay me, come in!" Ushering the stranger in, he let the door fall shut with a bang, shivering himself as he plated up more stew, sawing another lump from the bread. "What has you travelling in this weather?"  
  
"A stag," the man replied around a mouthful of bread and stew. "Biggest one I've seen," he balanced the bowl on his knees as he indicated the span of the antlers, "got lost in this though and your village doesn't take too kindly to strangers."  
  
"You've been here before?"  
  
"Years ago," the stranger answered with an odd smile, mopping up the last of the stew, he burped behind his hand as he passed the bowl back.  
  
"How many years?"  
  
"You would've barely left your mother's breast."

In the light of the fire, the man's eyes looked the same as his own and the heat had brought a flush to his skin. There was a familiarity, more than a little jarring, things about this face that he recognised in his own; the eyes, the nose (longer, a patrician's nose, unlike his mother's or any of the men in the village) and his skin – more tanned, even if the chill had left him white and ashen.

"You..."  
  
"I meant to come for you sooner, never should have left you in that miserable place but I couldn't tarry in that awful village and I couldn't take your mother where I call home." He sat in silence, sap hissing and crackling in the fire when a log finally split in two, the fire collapsing for a moment before burning all the brighter. He allowed himself time to mull all over the man's words, wanting to look him in the eye but at the same time unable to stare directly, looking away as something tingled along the edges of his senses but he didn't know what it could be and so he sighed. The stranger spoke again before he did. "You and I are the same. Your mother calls you special and she is right."  
  
"How do you know what my mother says?"  
  
"I see with more than my own eyes – eyes that only our blood have. Aye, you are the demon's son for to their ignorant eyes, I am a demon, witch, warlock, every evil thing." The stranger reached out and he shied back but made himself hold still and accept the touch and at once the heat was sweltering, as though he had been cast into the fire.

He wore the pelt of a beast, not as clothing as the huntsmen did or their wives if it were soft and pretty enough, or tokens to woo a girl. No, he wore the skin as surely as he wore his own, hot blood in his veins, rippling with muscle and smells all about him, overwhelming and his stomach roiled but distantly, as though he had no part in it. A bird flew overheard, cawing and he snarled and growled in a voice not his own. He sighted the stag, caught the musk stink of it and ran, four feet pounding the ground until he was himself once more, flat on his back, sweating.

"There. You see?" The man's eyes were wild, the smile too but it had a sharper, flinty edge that his mother's had not and he nodded, throat raw as the beast prowled still. "I knew you would have the blood. Cursed we were, cursed so many years ago by the damnable bitch queen – when we lay with our own no child came or the woman died, the babe too, monstrous thing."  
  
"So that..." It was hard to speak now as he remembered his tongue and teeth and it had been so fleeting but so vivid. "That's why you bedded my mother?"  
  
"Young, strong, not too hard on the eyes and I left. Dangerous to stay with and we do not settle as we rebuild. We spread our blood, we must, it is our way now to sow as many seeds as we can for the harvest."  
  
"So you mean to take me with you?"  
  
"You are not of this place – you do not live among them and they know you are not of their blood, that you are different. Maidens will want you because the blood sings, all that power you have not realised," the man, father, father now, jabbed a finger down hard where his heart was and he was sure it would slide straight through his chest and into it, blunt needle to puncture, "that sits there, raw and waiting. We wait out the storm, we hunt the stag and you eat for strength. Nothing stronger than the heart of a stag and the blood of it. Sleep."

It was a command, not a request and the world went black but he laughed as he fell asleep. Witch son yes. Witch son by his father, not his mother.

Morning dawned with pale light but less wind, less bite and they trudged through the woods all in silence with the few provisions they needed and it was a good silence, a companion's silence as they began to hunt the stag. It didn't hear them and it must have been half dead from cold and exhaustion but not hunger; it was as big as his father indicated, muscular with a thick pelt covered in snow. His mouth watered at the thought of it (heart and blood, heart and blood, hot and thick and like iron, salt and copper on his tongue) as he followed his father, their footsteps loud as they crunched through snow thick with frost, boots sinking deep. The stag startled, his father nodded and he ran, kicking up huge white flurries as he went, axe in hand as he raced for it, adrenaline making him move faster than he could ever remember moving before.

He pounced. There was no other word for it. When he had hunted before he had used a bow and arrow, had crept through carefully instead of this but something took over and he lunged, the axe swinging down to cut deep into the stag's proud neck, blood spilling out hot and thick over the head of the axe and down into the snow. He and the stag went too, the animal giving a half-hearted noise, the mournful bellow of the losing party during the rut but he had cut deeply and it the snow swallowed up the sound as man and beast clattered to the ground. Before he knew what he was doing, his face was smeared with blood, dripping down his chin and even spreading up to his eyebrows and when his father touched his shoulder he snarled and bared his teeth.

He had done that once. Years ago as a boy. They had mocked him all the worse for it, called him dog and all the rest. He wondered now how he had forgotten, especially when he had told his mother once he had dried his tears, once he had made himself cold and hard inside and she had fed him his meat rare, giving him bread to mop up the blood that had left the plate slick and shiny.

A knife was pressed to his hand and he remembered he was to eat the heart and he abandoned his axe, setting to work. The stag had been in his prime, thick fur and fat to hack through and the ribs would not give way to the knife so he set that down too for the moment, plunging his hand in to where it was warm and wet, groping around for where the heart should be and when he found it he hauled and tugged, grateful for the strength of his hands and muscles from his work. The heart finally came out, cradled in his palms and steaming in the snow around them.

"Eat it," his father made his way closer, "tear into it with your teeth, you're strong enough."

And he did. Rich, bitter and salty, the heart was tough to tear into but he did, giving up on the chewing once his jaw began to ache from it, instead choosing to rip bites off that he could swallow whole. It was frustrating. He wanted to savour it, wanted to feel the blood coat his mouth but he could not on this occasion. Soon. Soon he knew. He was uncomfortably full when he was done and he wanted to flop back but contented himself in licking the dried blood from his fingers, followed by scooping up fresh, white snow to wipe his face. A part of him wanted to eat the bloodied ice, pale pink instead of dark red but it would be like an icy kick to the gut and leave him cramping and pained – he'd seen it happen to one of the men he'd worked with and they'd had to drag him back to a cabin and leave him there until it had passed. Belly filled to bursting, he rolled over onto his back in the snow, by the heat of the corpse, head pounding as he dug his fingers into clods of snow until the heat of his bloody hands melted it to ice.

"Come on," a boot to his side, not painful but hard, insistent and he snarled, lips pulled back over his teeth, "we have to keep moving." He rolled onto his front and groaned, bile clawing up his throat but he managed to get back to his feet, head swimming for a moment, sweat forming at his hairline to drip down his temple as he swayed on his feet.  
  
"Where?" He asked, eyes turned to the thick press of trees, the snow starting to fall once more in flurries.  
  
"We hunt. We stay silent. Come."

He was loathe to leave the kill, _his_ kill, but he followed, racing after his father, the blood and meat in his body giving him the fuel to move faster, to plough through the deep snow drifts as if they were nothing at all. There was a strange impulse to run, to keep running until he reached the limits of his endurance, to climb some high mountain and leap off the summit, uncaring as to whether he'd hit water or land from the fall but when he made moves to lope off, a strong hand caught him. Cuffed him. He nearly fell in an untidy sprawl, flapped his arms to stop it and to stay upright, snapping at the older man who gave him a level look back that said that he too knew that same strange urge but that it was not the time or place for it.

"There isn't time for that, you don't know how brief our window is," he urged, tugging at him to follow in his footsteps, "oh the time is short, we can't afford for you to be so close to this and then for us to fail, no we can't, we can't."

And so they pressed on, him fighting this burgeoning wildness as they moved through the snow together, two silent shapes in the forest. When the time came, they moved slower, watching carefully where they placed their feet and it was easier to hear, to judge, to know when the snow had formed a crust that would break with a crack or what branch would creak from the slightest contact. He ducked under one and then held his breath. That scent. That scent on the wind that smelt like predator, smelt so familiar and when he breathed in, he opened his mouth that still tasted of blood and salt and iron and now there was spice on the tip of his tongue. Tasting the air. He could feel it, something out there, smell and taste it but he couldn't see or hear it. But it was there. It was being stalked and the surge of power made his mouth water but not from hunger but from the desire to prove himself, to take down whatever was out there and lurking. He took the lead from his father, bent low, snow up to his chest but there were rocks underfoot and he used them to lever himself up onto ground where the wind had swept the snow away, moving forward doggedly until suddenly he spotted out, out of place but so right, so perfect, standing there in all its glory. A male lion, mane luxuriant and proud as he stood majestic, blood on his muzzle and paws, a stag beneath it, ripped apart, bones cracked to allow him to get at the marrow.

It looked their way, scented the air. No fear in it when their eyes locked, a low grunting growl of warning and challenge as it held its ground. He raised himself up, stood tall, shoulders back and unleashed a sound, deep and rumbling and ran. Time distorted. Slowed. Just the _tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump_ of his heart until the sickening crack of bone impacting with bone jolted him back to reality, sprawling in the snow with the lion, both of them roaring and snarling, spit and blood flying. Huge claws raked him open as he grabbed one jaw in each hand and heaved, pulling and pushing. The lion whined and even through the pain that made him want to curl up and weep, his legs surged upwards to plant one foot in the soft belly, kicking again and again and again until he rolled them over. Still it struggled but he fought it and fumbled for something, anything, to give him some advantage but another claw split him open across his shoulder, the mouth snapping until he pressed all his weight forward across the throat, holding on to force the airway shut, to crush it until the limbs jerked spasmodically.

Eventually, it went still.

He collapsed forward on top of it, shaking and coughing, aware of the blood in his throat, of the stinging pulse of wounds and his father, his father shoving him to the ground where he fell with a thump, thundering like a bellows to draw breath. The sound of skin and wet flesh being sliced through reached his ears and then he was being rolled, being lifted into it, stuffed in as much as possible.

The old man, his father, was crying. Salty drops on his face as cold, dry lips were pressed to his forehead.

"Be strong. Be strong and tear them apart. I'll meet you again someday. Feed and find a woman. Every town, every village, every little place leave a piece of you behind – we become immortal through our children." His father brushed his hair back from his head and why could he not speak, trembling inside the cooling body of the beast. "Oh we need more of our blood, more, more, more."

And then his father was gone, seemingly bursting from his skin, a leopard disappearing into the thickening snow, into the oncoming night. Alone he lay there in the lion, blackness encroaching his vision, freezing until suddenly he was not so cold, he felt warm. He felt vigorous and alive. He rolled over and went to swear but he couldn't – he wasn't human. Paws for hands, thick pelt, that mane protecting him and when he ran it was on all fours.

He was starving.

Bursting through the trees, he chased down a herd of deer, ripped them apart, took down far more than he needed to eat, gorged himself and then eventually he felt his body break apart and he staggered out of the wolf skin, fully dressed, still bloody and he rolled in the snow, cleaning himself as he wrapped the lion skin about himself, pulled the face up over like a hood and followed the path he had taken out to the forest, past the stag carcass (picked clean by his father, he could tell, the scent in the air was family) and to his home. He gathered his things, threw them in a pack over one shoulder and went into the village, past his mother's house where she would be curled around herself, weeping and muttering and to that one house where the girl had looked the most, the girl who while not bold, hadn't been dissuaded by the rebukes of her parents as easily as the others. No, she had wanted him, wanted the bad boy of the village, to tame him and make him her own.

But he'd make her his instead. He'd leave her something to come back for years from now. He knocked the door softly, pushing the lion's face away from his own and smiled.


End file.
